Sunday, May 29, 2016

One Massive Paradigm Shift


Just today I was thinking about one of the most important paradigm shifts of my life. I believe it was in 2009 or 2010, which was a season of big, important changes for me. I was at a presentation on the Theology of the Body, which is only cursorily important to the shift. In one moment, I realized that all of my life I had understood myself, either consciously or subconsciously, as a wounded child: broken, dysfunctional, and needy. Place the most emphasis on that last word: needy. Needy, in the sense that I could not give to others because my own needs were so overwhelmingly great. And in that moment of paradigm shift, I realized that this simply was no longer true of how I saw myself. I saw that I have received so much, to the degree that I have a lot to give, and indeed have been called to give it.

And as I look back over the last six or seven years, I see that this one little moment was a flash of insight that showed me a completely new direction in which my life was headed.

For years, the healing stories of Jesus have fascinated me. Think of it: a lot of the stories involve people with long-standing problems that are suddenly gone. The blind man sees. The lepers are healed. The hemorrhaging woman is freed. The withered hand is whole. Just think of the crisis this kind of change provokes, and the courage that it actually requires to have a life-defining circumstance removed, even if it has been a plague. One has to thoroughly relearn how to live, how to re-establish relationships, and one's own sense of self.

It is one thing to have a physical symptom removed; it is another thing to live with a new identity. What I realized today is that I have to work very hard to even remember that I once had a chronic underlying identity as one too broken, too unloved, too dysfunctional to even think in terms of contributing to the well-being of the world or to be part of the new creation.

We all have pain and brokenness. Ironically it is healed by facing reality. "Reality is too harsh, too painful," many say, and it is true; sometimes it is extremely painful. It is why we can only handle so much at once, and it is why we numb ourselves by all sorts of means. But God is in reality. Faith in God, practically speaking, is really about entrusting our personal pain to the real, open gaze of God, and not bolting. Letting Him see us, which generally entails us seeing us and then trusting that God is not the ogre we imagine, because of whatever pain we hold in the first place.

It's not a quick fix. It is a steady process. And even thought I had that sudden paradigm shift, there was still a long process, before and after, of appropriation. And we don't have to run that program, only cooperate with the program God runs. Mostly we need to stay faithful to saying, "Lord, you're seeing this, right?" and being honest about what we think and feel and want and about forgiving the people, including ourselves, that we blame for not being God. And we need to repent of the idolatry of wanting what is created to be all-fulfilling to us. There is only one God, and we cannot order Him around like a cosmic butler who exists to keep us cared for. He is God; we serve Him. His love transforms us, and in the process of all things in us becoming new, we lose our cravings for earthly goods and are enflamed with desire for union with Him instead. Our souls become agents, partners, of His transforming love in this creation.

This is my testimony. It has happened to me, or rather is happening to me in some degree. It is the work of God in my life, and I am grateful. If I could reproduce this in the souls and lives of others it would make me incredibly happy. Many, many times I have sensed, almost like seeing in shadows, many unknown, hidden souls who have prayed me through many layers of conversion in my life. And I have known the call to join their number, to prepare in prayer the same banquet of love for others.

Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Buy Gold

For you say, ‘I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything,’ and yet do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white garments to put on so that your shameful nakedness may not be exposed, and buy ointment to smear on your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and chastise. Be earnest, therefore, and repent.

This word from the book of Revelation chapter 3 has been echoing inside me all morning. Every bit of commenting I read about the presumptive Republican nominee sends it echoing again.

But our need in this country is for something much greater than a statesman or a decent politician. I'm going to look the professing Christians in the eye and issue this challenge, the same one that Jesus gave the Laodiceans: Buy Gold.

And what does it mean? How do you do it? For that's the first thing: if Christians don't even know what makes the Christian life distinctive from human attempts at being morally upright, it is no wonder that we are spiritually bankrupt.

Jesus has the gold. We buy it from Him by picking up the cross that is ours and following Him. As we do this, we give ourselves over to conformity to Him by the Holy Spirit. (Fear not, little freedom lover, conformity is not a dirty word when you are conforming to the infinite God.) As we follow Him, taking His concerns as ours, He takes our concerns as His. They are transformed. We are changed. And He compensates us with gold.

Then we exchange that gold for the transformation of souls and the world around us through love, grace and peace.

If we don't follow, we don't gain gold. Without gold, we are left deeply poor, too poor to even cover ourselves. If we don't grasp the futility of human work to accomplish divine things, we are blind fools. The only thing that we can offer to God for the transformation of souls is the good He has given us through our personal share in His cross.


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